


The Feeling of Home

by Avanalae



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Damian being a brat and hardly mentioned, Found Family, Gen, why is that not a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 03:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17479982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avanalae/pseuds/Avanalae
Summary: Colin doesn't see in Tim what Damian does. It's like the boy doesn't even look at his older brother.





	The Feeling of Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "Tim Drake lets Colin Wilkes live with him. Tim is a good big brother, and Colin can’t see why Damian seems to hate Tim so much." 
> 
> Originally posted July 2014.

Tim hums and runs his hands through Colin’s red hair, “You feeling better?”

His slender hand is cool against the flushed skin of the boy laying his head in his lap.

“Yeah…” Colin sighs.

He stares up at the young man who allowed him into his home, no questions asked, and provided for him without a single complaint. He looks into soft blue eyes and sees a kindness there that he’s never seen directed at himself.

Tim smiles softly, “I’m glad.”

Colin feels the tears building up and he… he’s just so tired right now. He doesn’t want to fight it. So he just hopes that…

That’s it’s okay.

The first tear falls and Tim’s eyes widen. “Colin? Are you okay?” One hand goes to his forehead, soothingly brushing back his hair and the other cups his cheek, thumb wiping away a tear.

The boy merely closes his eyes and turns his face into Tim’s stomach.

Tim doesn’t ask further and the silence that follows isn’t awkward at all. And eventually, when Colin starts to doze off, he feels himself carried and placed gently into a bed and tucked in.

He probably dreams the kiss to his forehead and the soft murmurs of sweet dreams.

_

Colin has been friends with Damian for a long while, now. At least, according to his perceptions of time.

But he’s had to put up with a lot from his friend, but one of the most notable things would be his near constant complaints about his “brother,” Tim Drake.

And Colin had always taken it with a grain of salt, familiar enough with the man that he wasn’t sure half the things Damian said about him were true.

Now… Now Colin was questioning everything his friend had ever said about Tim. Because nothing he’d heard from the boy matches the man before him.

After stumbling to Tim’s apartment with a fever-ridden body and dazed eyes that somehow managed to find it in the middle of the night, Tim had taken him in.

(Thinking back on it, he’d been very lucky in every aspect. He’d managed to find a place Damian had just told him about – never shown him or given the exact address! Not only that, but Tim had been home. What were the chances of that?)

Tim had nursed him back to health, buying him medicine and making him food and all these things that clearly took up time and money. Afterwards, Tim had let him stay. He’d continued to give Colin a place to sleep, food to eat, attention and affection, and more.

It was amazing.

Colin was scared every day that one morning he would wake up and find out it had just been a dream.

Perhaps one day, when he manages to leave the apartment free from the fear of coming back to a locked door, he’ll go seek out Damian and question him about it.

_

“Colin?” Tim tilts his head, birdlike, and Colin stifles a giggle at the action. Tim smiles in return, “Can you please set the table?”

“Yeah!” The boy smiles and goes to do so.

It’s strange, being so excited to do a simple chore. But he’s getting meals - filling meals just for him (and Tim, of course) that he can take his time to enjoy.

It’s amazing.

Everything now is just…

 _Amazing_.


End file.
